31 comments:

Re the comment on flip flopping ("it's not flip flopping if..."), the point could be refined a little more: I wouldn't say it's flip flopping to change your mind. It's flip flopping to change your position purely out of electoral expediency. Flip flopping is pandering. Of course, by that definition, Mitt may well be a flip flopper. But in this race, he's got plenty of company - Hillary levels that threat at him at her peril.

I'm not ready to write off Giuliani, and with all due respect to him, I'm left with a distinct sense of doubt as to whether Jim understands what kind of judges that someone like me wants, and that conservatives think they want.

I also think you're perhaps over-optimistic about cameras encouraging Justices to quit (I was never pleased with this suggestion on a normative level, but on further reflection over the last year, I've come to think it's outright unconstitutional); if years of relentless criticism from the academy hasn't pushed Justice Thomas off the bench yet, I doubt he's going to jump ship because of a critical comment about his weight in Us Weekly. And in any event, it seems to me that it'd be far better way of resolving Justices clinging to power to just step up to the place and pass an amendment that provides Justices with X year (where x is anything between 16 and 24 years - my preference is 18) non-renewable terms, followed by retirement on full salary. That would eliminate the emerging de facto age requirement and open up a field where people who really ought to sit on the Supreme Court -- Kozinski and Easterbrook spring instantly to mind -- aren't effectively estopped just because they're not going to serve for thirty years.

Lastly, I think Pinkerton's a brave man to bring up CSPAN in defense of cameras.

It's too hard to pass a constitutional amendment, but I would oppose your suggestion anyway. I don't like tampering with the original structure, it's worked very well to produce independence, and I don't want presidential campaigns run with the knowledge of who's leaving and when.

LOL - no offense intended, then. ;) I didn't mean to suggest it looks less valuable than it is. ;) I'm a hetero male, it's half the battle to notice you're wearing a scarf. ;)

I don't entirely agree that it's too hard to pass an amendment, but that's an argument for another day; the point is, I don't want to oversell the amendment argument - I'm not going out to bat for it here. I'd share your skepticism about amending a system that works (besides - there are at least threegoodarguments in favor of life tenure), and the point is just that if the goal is to reduce dotage tenure, there are better ways to do it. But doesn't not "want[ing] presidential campaigns run with the knowledge of who's leaving and when" lose some cachet when Presidential campaigns are already turning (and will continue to do so until Roe's overturned, I believe) in large part on the kind of Justices the candidate will nominate? No matter how illogical, the assumption seems to be fairly persistent that whoever wins the next election will get to nominate at least one Justice, which means that the issue dominates campaigns already.

You were a little too much of a talk-show host in this episode- you let Pinkerton dominate a bit, and more volleyed questions towards him. It was still good- BH is always good- but a bit more gentle.

My favorite Althouse-episode of BHTV was the Jonah Goldberg episode, even though I thought you were wrong, just because you were so openly combative. It was fun! But Pinkerton is rather affable, so it's hard to raise one's dander too much. Proposal: more excitable BHTV guests!

Whatsisname says TV is dominated by women, but for how long has that been the case? (Is it even true now, or was he just riffing? SHHH!) Was it true in 1970, or 1980? Does the dominance of TV by women date quite recently, like from the emergence of the internet? Men would presumably have decamped for a medium with more nekkid chicks, or that involves newer gadgets.

I think that theory's an absolute crock for a wide variety of reasons, and plausible for essentially none that I'm aware of, but it's a pretty cool theory anyway. I like it. Regardless of what they say about it, I'm gonna keep it.

Steve: I let him dominate the first segment, because it was his topic, and I didn't have much to say about it, but after that, looking back on it, I saw myself interrupting a lot and talking probably more than 50% of the time. That said, I do find it hard to get into disagreements with Jim. And you're right that it was much more natural to get into disagreements with Jonah.

I think the deal with men droning on and on about a single topic in a "grim and remorseless and heavy" way, may not be so much an attempt to create an impression of being knowledgeable, as an unselfconscious flow of enthusiasm for the actual topic.

Sometimes people say things because they want to communicate what they're actually saying.

Well, the "geeky" ones do, anyway.

What was that thing about women uttering three times as many words per day as men?

Regarding Arab romanticism/nationalism -- It's all true what Jim Pinkerton said. And WWI was freakishly awful. And Nazi Germany was horrid. But look at Germany now. Would you rather have Germany as it is now or Germany as it was before the Enlightenment?

Isn't it possible that good Western statecraft and good Western diplomacy could see a country through the confrontation with modernity, and isn't it certain that an Iraq like Germany now would be far preferable for future generations than the tyranical regimes it suffered under for decades and centuries?

I had to leave half-way through earlier this evening and only finished it a moment ago. So, I did notice the difference others have mentioned. That said, I agree with Ruth Anne. It seems to me that you are more comfortable.

Unlike some others here, I am not particularly interested in a lot of fireworks or heavily armed combat via repetition of talking points everyone has already heard. Those pseudo-exchanges are everywhere on television already.

A pleasant conversation while talking about issues of the day is so rare that I really enjoy these moments even when I disagree with much of what is being said. Slides and music would only distract from the purpose IMO, and veer the conversation towards prepared text and not spontaneous responses.

Then again, the bloggingheads site itself is in desperate need of a better layout. It is not pleasing to the eye, and quite cluttered.

Most of your Male Blogginghead partners seem unable to disagree with you in an intelligent or interesting manner. They either wimp out ("Yes, Ann you're absolutely right") like Pinkerton and that other wuss, or they become incoherent and consumed by rage; like Goldberg.